Geochests – store pieces of the world in a chest

Chests are one of the most common function blocks in Minecraft. They’re just so darn useful, and storing items is a crucial part of the game. But what if you could store blocks? And I don’t mean blocks as items, but actual pieces of the world saved as blocks? This is the premise Geochests delivers on, and it’s a pretty cool mod. Let’s take a look…

Geochests crafting

In order to craft a Geochest, you need a new type of ore the mod adds. This can be a bit of a hassle, but luckily, it’s not a very rare ore and spawns often above ground. The author of the mod, Sirwol, describes the spawn algorithm like so:

Geodite ore only exists above sea level and is most easily found in the extreme hills biome where it is sometimes exposed on cliff faces.

So, it shouldn’t be a problem. When you’ve got the Geodite, it’s time to get crafting. There are chests of numerous sizes, and each is crafted via a universal recipe, just including the previous. lower level chest. So, to craft the basic white Geochest you just put a normal chest in the middle with Geodite above it and white carpet all around. That way you get the small white Geochest that carries a 3×3 cube of blocks. You can then put the white Geochest in the middle with geodite above and surround it with yellow carpet for the yellow Geodite chest which carries a 5×5 cube of blocks, and so forth on the scale which includes blue (7×7), red (9×9), and black (11×11).

Geochests interface

When you’ve got your Geochest ready it’s time to store stuff. While it might sound like this would be kinda complex, the way it works is rather simple – you place your chest on the ground in front of the thing you want to store, open the chest and then click the little chest icon at the bottom to store. To unpack the chest you do the same thing. The interface also includes an interactive list of all the blocks contained, which is navigated via layers. Just take a look at the picture and it all becomes rather clear rather quickly:

Geochests usage

Once you’ve figured out how it works, the application is limitless. Probably the most common use for it will be carrying around a small outpost in your pocket that can be set up easily. Just plop the chest down and store the blocks.

… then unpack it again and enjoy your house the way it was.

It can be used to move rooms in your huge building without breaking everything. Chests stored inside of the chest remain uncorrupted, and you can even put Geochests inside Geochests, causing a chain reaction of unpacking. You can use a chest to mine effectively, basically just looking through the blocks a giant chunk of world contain. It’ll even store entities like mobs and minecarts, allowing you to transfer much more than just blocks. It can even be useful when used as copy pasting in creative mode.

There is a downside, however. The mod by nature has very complicated scripting because of its premise, so compatibility with other mods is limited. Sometimes it will work, and sometimes it won’t, so be careful when mixing this mod with others.

Overall I was genuinely surprised at how useful this mod was. The concept it has is unique and the mod is well-executed to the point of near-perfection. Anything you can think of that would be useful when talking about a chest that stores chunks of the world is in there, and that’s admirable. To get it yourself, go here: